With the developments of information processing technology in recent years, it has become easy to obtain an enormous number of contents easily via recording media, networks, broadcast waves or the like. For example, in case of music contents, downloading from a music distribution site via a network is generally practiced in addition to purchasing a recording medium such as a CD (Compact Disc) or the like that stores music contents. Including data recorded by a user himself/herself, contents stored in a PC, a reproducing apparatus or a recording medium have been increasing. Therefore a technology becomes necessary to search through an enormous number of contents for one desired content easily. One of those technologies is displaying data as thumbnails.
Displaying data as thumbnails is a technology where a plurality of still images or moving images are displayed on a display all at once as still images or moving images of reduced size. By displaying data as thumbnails, it has become possible to grasp the contents of data at a glance and to select a desired data exactly, even in case that a lot of image data, which is taken by a camera or a recorder and is accumulated or which is downloaded, is stored and their attribute information (e.g., file names, the date of recording or the like) is difficult to comprehend. Furthermore, by glimpsing a plurality of pieces of image data, all the data can be appreciated quickly or the contents of recording media or the like, which stores the data, can be grasped at short times.